NCVS e-bulletin - Thursday 3 April 2025

Welcome to this edition of the NCVS e-bulletin — your perfect excuse to put the kettle on and skip that email you've been putting off! We're back to normal after our special edition, we're hiring, and we're welcoming a new team member. This edition is packed with opportunities, so why not get that spring back in your step and try something new?

In this e-bulletin, you'll find:

• Two chances to join the NCVS team
• Get involved in NCVS150 birthday celebrations
• Helen and Dave share their thoughts in two brand-new blogs
• Sign up for the next Leaders of Volunteers (LoVN) Extra meeting (and have a nosey at our new home)
• Latest funding opportunities

And so much more. Happy reading!

Are you an experienced leader in the Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector? Do you thrive on making things happen and connecting people? Are you comfortable with a challenge?

NCVS is at the heart of Nottingham’s voluntary sector, and we're looking for a Deputy CEO to work alongside our CEO in leading and growing our organisation.

We need a skilled communicator who can adapt to different audiences, build relationships fast, and think creatively. You’ll be someone who works collaboratively, pays attention to detail, and drives results.

As Deputy CEO, you'll support the CEO in delivering our strategic goals, strengthen and champion the sector, lead operational functions, and represent NCVS at local, regional, and national levels.

• Hours: 35 hours per week
• Salary: £44,290 to £46,350 per annum
• Closing date: Tuesday 22 April 2025, 12 noon

Are you passionate about engaging ethnic minority communities and raising awareness of Severe and Multiple Disadvantage (SMD)? Do you have the drive to create change by working with system partners to improve services for those with limited access?

We’re looking for a dynamic individual to lead outreach efforts to under-represented communities, particularly Asian, Asian British, and White non-British groups. You’ll play a key role in co-producing engagement strategies with community leaders and equipping volunteers to break the stigma around SMD.

This role requires someone with a strong track record of engaging ethnic minority communities and leaders. Knowledge of SMD is a plus, but your passion for making a difference is what counts. Supported by NCVS’s Practice Development Unit, you’ll help ensure that people experiencing multiple disadvantages get the help they need.

If you’re ready to make an impact, we want to hear from you!

• Hours: 35 hours per week
• Salary: £28,783 to £30,843 per annum
• Closing date: Tuesday 22 April 2025, 12 noon

Welcome to the new Team Talk centre, your one-stop shop for all things tips, tricks, and resources. Here you'll find the latest from the team at NCVS.

There are plenty more blogs, think pieces and helpful resources on our website. 

The deadline for applications is Sunday 13 April 2025, 11.59pm

There are two rounds of funding, with a total of £200,000 available for distribution each year in the form of four £50,000 donations. The first round opens in March, and two donations will be awarded in May. The second round opens in June, with two successful applicants selected in September.

The deadline for applications is Thursday 29 May 2025, 5pm

Lloyds Bank Foundation has opened its Racial Equity Fund for applications. Unrestricted funds of £75,000 over three years (£25,000 per year) will be available for charitable organisations that are led by and work with people experiencing economic inequity because of their race or ethnicity. The Foundation is especially eager to receive applications from small, local, and specialist organisations.

There is no stated deadline

The Energy Resilience Fund (ERF) provides a blended funding package of loan (60%) and grant (40%) to bolster the energy resilience of eligible charities and social enterprises in England. Organisations can apply for between £25,000 to £250,000 (inclusive of 40% grant element). This will be made up of a fixed amount of loan (60%) and grant (40%).

We're regularly updating the funding news on our website, so click the button below and find the fund for you!

Monday 28 April 2025, 10am to 12 noon
Dryden Enterprise Centre, Dryden Street, NG1 4FQ

A face-to-face networking meeting for anyone with an interest in managing, supporting or leading volunteers.

This meeting will be facilitated by Dave Thomas (NCVS Volunteering Development Officer), supported by Davia McKoy (NCVS Projects Support Administrator). Come along to meet your fellow Leaders of Volunteers in person, share good practice and ideas, and celebrate your successes. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided.

Please share your ideas for agenda items and topics for discussion with Dave by emailing davet@nottinghamcvs.co.uk or calling 07564 040 767.

Places are limited, and it's important that you book your place.

Green social prescribing is a way of connecting people to nature-based activities and green groups, projects and schemes in their local community for support with health and wellbeing. Often this will be through a referral from a Link Worker based at a GP practice or another primary care professional.

Our scheme in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, called GreenSpace, was one of seven government Green Social Prescribing Test and Learn sites.

While the National Test and Learn may have ended, NCVS continues to embed green social prescribing into health systems to make nature-based/outdoor activities an intervention of choice to support people to improve and maintain their mental and physical health and wellbeing.

The Practice Development Unit (PDU) aims to promote and facilitate collaborative learning and the sharing of good practice among professionals and volunteers from all sectors, in Nottingham and neighbouring areas, who work with people experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage (SMD). This is understood as a combination of mental ill-health, substance misuse, homelessness, offending and domestic abuse, among other issues.

Contact our PDU Team if you need more information: pdu@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

Join our free online hub www.pdunottingham.org

Follow us on Twitter @NottinghamCVS #PDUNottingham.

Tuesday 8 April 2025, 1pm to 2.30pm
Online via Microsoft Teams

This webinar will look at using patient and activity data that is already collected to identify SMD, we analyse how people experiencing multiple barriers to successful outcomes access mental health support. We will share our methodology, findings and proposed actions to you, as well as providing recommendations on how you can replicate this work within your own organisation.

Tuesday 22 April 2025, 1pm to 2.30pm
Online via Microsoft Team

Examine the different learning disabilities criteria, how learning disabilities may present and the reasonable adjustments people can make.

Go through the Homelessness Toolkit which was developed to improve knowledge and understanding for those working in services to be able to recognise when someone may have a learning disability and how reasonable adjustments can be made to support with communication needs, daily activities and developing social and practical skills.

Our full Training and Development programme is available to view on our website. All courses take place online via Zoom.

We have new sessions and new dates for 2025/2026. Book now.

Here’s what’s on offer:

• Core training – Now free*!
  Expert-led sessions covering essential skills for running an organisation or leading volunteers. You've said, we've listened, introducing brand new training to support your funding needs.
  
  
• Meet the... Series
  Join us for this new series where sector leaders share insights on the topics that matter most to Nottingham’s voluntary sector.
  
  
• PDU Training
  Supporting those working with people experiencing Severe and Multiple Disadvantage (SMD) with specialist insights and practical approaches. See the PDU section of this e-bulletin for upcoming PDU training.
  
  
• Social Enterprise Accelerator Programme (with NTU)
  Providing hands-on support for those starting or growing a social enterprise.

Check out upcoming sessions and book your place today!

*Terms and Conditions apply

Tuesday 8 April 2025, 1.30pm to 3pm

Meet charity law specialist, Ellis Pugh of Shakespeare Martineau, who will update you on legal and governance issues affecting your organisation, followed by a Q&A session.

Wednesday 16 April 2025, 10am to 12 noon

This online training will teach you the basics of health and safety, and explain the process of carrying out a risk assessment in your organisation.

Thursday 24 April 2025, 10am to 12 noon

In any group of volunteers, there’ll be occasional disagreements, personality clashes and conflicts. Although these are hopefully rare events, this updated, online training will prepare you for when they occur.

If you are a VCSE organisation in Nottingham City or a VCSE organisation recruiting to a job role which covers the Nottingham City area, you can submit a job advert for our website. Adverts remain on our website until the closing date. We feature new adverts once in the e-bulletin, where possible, depending on the volume of new adverts received.

There are lots more job listings on our website. You can view all the job vacancies available by clicking on the 'More Vacancies' button at the bottom of this section.

Thursday 15 May 2025
The Function room, St Peter's Street, Derby, DE1 1SN

This forum is aimed at frontline service providers across the East Midlands to examine practical and policy initiatives related to fuel poverty and the delivery of energy efficiency solutions at a local, regional, and national level. It will provide an opportunity to come together to discuss related issues and share insights gained from supporting householders.

Attendance is free and lunch will be provided. Numbers are limited and are offered at a maximum of two places per organisation per forum. National Energy Action members will be given priority booking.

To see insights collected from the September round of forums, please click here.

For any queries or further information, please contact james.kowacz@nea.org.uk.

Workshop dates every Tuesday and Thursday throughout April 2025, 12.30pm to 2.30pm
Nottingham Women's Centre, 30 Chaucer Street, NG1 5LP

Ready to boost your career and confidence? Join this free workshop at Nottingham Women’s Centre!

What you’ll gain:

• CV writing, job search and interview skills
• Confidence and resilience-building sessions
• 1-on-1 career guidance

To register your attendance, contact the Nottingham Women's Centre team by phone at 0115 941 1475 or email at reception@nottinghamwomenscentre.com.

More event listings on our website

Head over to the dedicated 'External Events and Training' page on our website to view more events and training opportunities from Nottingham's Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector.

If you would like to submit an event to feature on this page, please fill in our online event submission form. Events will be approved for publication on the NCVS website at our discretion, taking into account our aims and mission.

The Academy at Harmless is Harmless' specialist training department. The team delivers a range of CPD-accredited and bespoke training services around self harm, suicide awareness and prevention, and mental health. They deliver courses UK-wide, including externally accredited Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) and Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST).

Upcoming training includes:

• Suicide Bereavement
• Mental Health Awareness
• Suicide Prevention and Intervention
• Self-harm Awareness
• LLR Self Bereavement

View their Eventbrite page by clicking the button below to find out more and register for any upcoming training.

The Toy Library has a selection of safeguarding training sessions available; all courses are quality assured either by the Nottingham City Safeguarding Children Board (NCSCB) or by the Nottingham City Safeguarding Adult Board (NCSAB).

If you have any questions about safeguarding training, please email admin@toy-library.co.uk.

The Relationships Really Matter programme spans all of Nottinghamshire and Nottingham city. The programme recognises that when families are under stress, this can impact the communication and relationship between parents and carers, whether together or separated, and that this impacts the wellbeing, both physically and emotionally, of the children. 

Their webpage (click the 'Read more' button below) has lots of useful information for both parents and practitioners on what reducing parental conflict is and what support is available.  

There is also a free online resource provided by OnePlusOne, which has 3 different programmes for different stages of parenting:

• Arguing Better is aimed at parents and how to manage stress together
• Me, You and Baby Too is aimed at new and expectant parents
• Getting it Right for Children is aimed at separated families

Hatice Yarar, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, is researching multilingual (other than English at home) families with late-diagnosed deaf children, aiming to understand their experiences and needs.

To progress with her study, she is looking to connect with:

• Multilingual families whose children were late diagnosed due to issues with paediatric audiology services in the UK
• Families who have recently arrived in the UK, where the child has not yet had access to amplification or a signed language
• Professionals working with late-diagnosed deaf children in multilingual families

If you, or someone you know, would like to take part in this study, please contact Hatice at H.Yarar@sms.ed.ac.uk.

The government is creating a new ten-year national youth strategy to tackle the challenges for this generation of young people and ensure that every young person can thrive.

The National Youth Strategy will bring power back to young people and their communities and improve youth-focused services, moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach from the government.

If you support young people aged 10-21 (aged 25 with SEND), ask them to shape this once-in-a-generation strategy.

General VCSE sector resources

• National Voices Impact Report - Read how the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance has successfully supported the development of inclusive health and care policy, commissioning, and service design.
  
  
• Breaking point: The mental health crisis in small organisation leadership - Fair Collective's research has highlighted the pressures faced by small charity leaders in this new report.

The Nottingham Community and Voluntary Service (NCVS) e-bulletin will be back in a fortnight. The deadline for contributions and comments is Monday 14 April 2025. Email communications@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

Did you know we keep an archive of past NCVS e-bulletins? View the archive here.

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